A gang of 14 thieves arrived on mopeds to raid Apple’s flagship store in Covent Garden, London, in the early hours of this morning and made off with a handful of valuable Macs and iOS devices. Robert Shoesmith, a man who is already camping out for the iPhone 4S, was woken up when the store’s alarm went off at around 1:15 AM.

Two members of the gang were chased by the Metropolitan Police following the incident and were later arrested and taken into custody when stolen devices were found in their possession.

Shoesmith, who is famous for his iPhone experiment, has been camping outside the Covent Garden Apple store to be the first to bag the iPhone 4S since the day before Apple’s unveiling on October 4. He reported the incident in a post on his blog:

It’s around 1.15 am and the Apple Store in Covent Garden has just been raided!

Woke up to hear a load of motor bikes zoom in and then a smash and grab.

Alarm going off and police have just got here!

Really annoying as I was having an early sleep and was out for the count.

Looks like a lot of Mac computers have been stolen with 4 motor bikes.

Police are everywhere now!

Shoesmith reports that the Covent Garden store has been laid out in such a way that Apple’s notebooks are at the front of the store with iOS devices towards the rear, making them harder to steal. However, that didn’t stop this gang, who managed to secure “iPads and other similar devices” according to a statement from the police:

Detectives are appealing for witnesses and information after a smash-and-grab in central London.

Police were alerted at approx. 01.00hrs this morning (Monday 10 October) to a window broken and property taken from the Apple Store in Covent Garden.

It is believed there were around 7 moped riders / motorcyclists involved, most if not all with a pillion passenger. All persons were in full face crash helmets.

They stole iPads and other similar devices.

Shortly afterwards Islington police saw a moped and followed and attempted to stop it, but it was lost.

A moped was subsequently found abandoned in the vicinity of Wyclif Court, St John Street EC1 – officers saw two men inside the block of flats, and they were pursued on foot and apprehended within the block at approx 01.20hrs.

Some property, believed stolen from the store, was found in bags in their possession.

The men [A – 16 ys; B – 21 ys] are now in custody at a north London police station.

This isn’t the first time the popular store has been targeted by thieves. Just a couple of weeks ago vandals damaged its windows in a bid to gain entry into the store.

Let’s see: Covent Garden + Apple Store = 647 CCTV cameras per square metre. Not exactly the return of the Great Train Robbery crew, is it? At least they’ll have a large selection of images for this year’s Christmas card.

FenTiger

Woah Nellie, Wycliff Court’s behind where I work. Seen plenty of the local chavs bombing around on scooters, so not greatly surprised.

About the author

Killian Bell is a staff writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.

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